Come Together: The BA and UX Unicorns

24th of February, 2020 / / No Comments

Welcome to 2020. Yes indeed, we’re at the very top of the new year, where going back to work as a consultant, with bright ideas and an invigorated sense of purpose, may seem challenging when we’re met with the ongoing challenges from pre-existing engagements prior to the holiday break. How can we negate these habitual thoughts of ‘business-as-usual’ and look upon our work moving forward with fresh eyes and perspective? Arguably there is no better time to do this than at the top of the year.… [Keep reading] “Come Together: The BA and UX Unicorns”

Improve Operational Communications by using Microsoft Teams

16th of July, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Microsoft proudly announced their fastest growing product hit 13 Million+ active users per month. It’s amazing how far the product has come in just 3 years!Infographic showing Microsoft Teams outpacing Slack in daily active users with 13+ million. Slack DAU based on public disclosures, matched with month of disclosure. For dates between disclosures, straightline linear growth was assumed.

It’s safe to say Teams has become the cornerstone of the intelligent workplace powering experiences from content collaboration to chat to modern meetings.  Of late I’ve been working on some not-so-typical use cases, ones that emerged with new features that became available in June 2019.

It reinforces the importance of keeping abreast of product updates as the simplest enhancement can unlock new use cases and drive efficiencies in areas you wouldn’t normally expect.… [Keep reading] “Improve Operational Communications by using Microsoft Teams”

Microsoft Teams Announcements and New Features – Enhance your meetings today

25th of March, 2019 / / No Comments

Microsoft Teams has just turned 2. To celebrate, new features have been announced and are coming your way soon. With this wave of new features there aren’t many reasons left not to adopt Microsoft Teams. Many of our customers are embracing Teams as they see the value in a connected collaboration experience that brings together voice, chat, content & meetings.

For me, nothing beats a face-to-face meeting. Though, as people embrace flexible working, are geographically distributed or constantly on the go, connecting with others can be challenging.… [Keep reading] “Microsoft Teams Announcements and New Features – Enhance your meetings today”

Office 365 Lessons Learned – Advice on how to approach your deployment

11th of February, 2019 / / No Comments

Hindsight sometimes gets the better of us. That poor storm trooper.  If only he had the advice before Obi-Wan Kenobi showed up.  Clearly the Galactic Empire don’t learn lessons.  Perhaps consultants use the Jedi mind trick to persuade their customers?

I’ve recently completed an 18 month project that rolled out Office 365 to an ASX Top 30 company. This project successfully rolled out Office 365 to each division & team across the company, migrating content from SharePoint 2007 and File Shares.… [Keep reading] “Office 365 Lessons Learned – Advice on how to approach your deployment”

Create Office365 business value through the power of limitation

22nd of January, 2019 / / No Comments

Recent consulting engagements have found me helping customers define what Office365 means to them & what value they see in its use. They are lucky to have licenses and are seeking help to understand how they drive value from the investment.

You’ve heard the sales pitches: Office365 – The platform to solve ALL your needs! From meetings, to document management, working with people outside your organisation, social networking, custom applications, business process automation, forms & workflow, analytics, security & compliance, device management…the list goes on and is only getting bigger!… [Keep reading] “Create Office365 business value through the power of limitation”

Know what you Value and how you Behave

7th of January, 2019 / / No Comments

In a previous post I discussed some tips on how to be a better consultant. A few people asked about my last tip – Stay true to your values.  They ask what are they? How do I know what I value? Do they really impact behaviour?  

What are values?

They are deeply held beliefs about behaviours or outcomes we think are important. In their book The Truth About Leadership, Kouzes & Posner do a great job of making them relevant:

Values drive commitment.

… [Keep reading] “Know what you Value and how you Behave”

The struggle for meaning – Is the Intranet dead?

17th of December, 2018 / / No Comments

People struggle to find meaning in life. Our place in the world. The value we provide. Our political persuasions allow us to either rethink definitions or preserve our traditions & institutions. Funnily enough, this philosophical divide plays out in technology all the time.

The morbid question – Is the intranet dead? – seems to be popping its head up recently. I get it, the world is evolving, our expectations of ‘digital’ has changed and technology is at a point where it’s no longer a barrier to seizing opportunity.… [Keep reading] “The struggle for meaning – Is the Intranet dead?”

Reflections from the field – Tips for being a better consultant

23rd of October, 2018 / / No Comments

Striving to be better at what you do is important for your development. Though, it typically translates into developing what you know rather than how you act. For consulting (or any job), there are two parts to the equation; Hard Skills & Soft skills. Balance is needed so you should learn to develop both.
I aim to help people develop their soft skills. They are typically harder to define and require more attention. Below are concepts I work on developing every day and hopefully you can take some away and start developing them for yourself.… [Keep reading] “Reflections from the field – Tips for being a better consultant”

User Psychology and Experience

11th of October, 2018 / / No Comments

Often times when designing a product or solution for a customer, in planning and concept development, we might consider the user experience to be one of two (or both) things:

  1. User feedback regarding their interaction with their technological environment/platforms
  2. The experience the user is likely to have with given technology based on various factors that contribute to delivering that technology to them; presentation, training, accessibility, necessity, intuitiveness, just to name a few.

These factors are not solely focused on the user and their role in the human – technology interaction process, but also their experience of dealing with us as solution providers.… [Keep reading] “User Psychology and Experience”

Provisioning complex Modern Sites with Azure Functions and Flow – Part 3 – Post Provisioning Site Configuration

3rd of October, 2018 / / No Comments

In the previous two blogs part 1 and part 2, we looked at steps to create a Modern team site and apply a custom provisioning template to it. In this blog, we will have a look at the steps for the post provisioning process to implement site specific requirements. Some of them could be:

1. Apply default values to list fields
2. Create a bunch of default folders
3. Manage Security groups (SP level) and permission level.… [Keep reading] “Provisioning complex Modern Sites with Azure Functions and Flow – Part 3 – Post Provisioning Site Configuration”